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(Monday, June 28, 1926) — Actor, filmmaker, comedian, songwriter and playwright Mel Brooks, one of America’s most influential comedy legends, with a career spanning more than seven decades across television, film, Broadway and publishing, was born Melvin James Kaminsky today on a tenement kitchen table at 515 Powell Street in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York.
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he began his entertainment career as a comic before joining Sid Caesar’s landmark television variety series Your Show of Shows, where he worked alongside comedy writers Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner.
Working with Reiner, Brooks co-created the legendary comedy routine The 2000 Year Old Man, which spawned a series of successful comedy albums. He also teamed with Buck Henry to create the hit NBC spy spoof Get Smart, which aired from 1965 to 1970.
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Brooks made his directorial debut with The Producers (1967), winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He followed with a string of comedy classics, including The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World, Part I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).
The American Film Institute ranked three of Brooks’ films — Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein — among the greatest American screen comedies of all time.
His original film The Producers later became a Broadway musical that ran from 2001 to 2007, won a record 12 Tony Awards and earned Brooks three Tony Awards of his own. More recently, he returned to one of his best-known franchises as writer and producer of Hulu’s History of the World, Part II in 2023.
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Over the course of his career, Brooks became one of only a select group of entertainers to achieve EGOT status, winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award. His many honors also include the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, the National Medal of Arts in 2016, the BAFTA Fellowship in 2017 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2024.
Brooks was married to Academy Award-winning actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. Their son, Max Brooks, is a bestselling author and screenwriter.
Brooks published his memoir, All About Me!, in 2021.
